Earlier today, Answers in Genesis posted an article titled There Is Hope for Atheists! In this article, Ken Ham writes about witnessing to atheists. He explains that when he reads the “blasphemous and vitriolic” comments of atheists he understands that most of them have never heard sound apologetics arguments.

At Answers in Genesis, through our resources, conferences, and other outreaches, we do our best to defend the Christian faith using apologetics against the secular attacks of our day. But in doing so, we need to also point people to the truth of God’s Word and challenge them concerning the saving gospel. We use apologetics to answer questions and direct people to God’s Word and its message of salvation.

There’s no greater thrill in this ministry than to hear how God has used what has been taught by AiG to touch someone’s life—for eternity. Last week, I was introduced to one of our new volunteers, Donna, who is helping sew some of the costumes for the figures that will be placed inside our full-size Ark. She had responded to my Facebook post asking for seamstresses.

I discovered that she became a Christian in 1993 after attending one of my seminars (called “Back to Genesis” with the Institute for Creation Research ministry) at Cedarville University in Ohio. The Bible-upholding seminar was such an eye-opener to her about the reliability of the Bible that she became a Christian.

We asked if she would share her testimony.

Donna begins her testimony as follows:

The Lord opened up this atheistic evolutionist’s eyes decades ago, through exposure to Ken’s ministry.

I was a die-hard evolutionist, completely convinced that the fossil finds in Olduvai Gorge supported the “evidence” that we evolved from less-complicated, early hominid creatures, like the so-called “Lucy”.

To keep a long story short: I attended a Creation Seminar at Cedarville College [now Cedarville University], sat in rapt attention as Ken Ham told me “the rest of the story,” and I realized that all of the fossil finds I believed supported evolution were, in all cases, misinterpreted. I was blown away! So, learning the truth about evolution preceded my realizing that God was real (after all!) and that the Bible was His Word. I became a creationist before I became a believer in Christ.

Ken Ham goes on to write that atheists are “walking dead people” and that he likes to remember, when witnessing to atheists, that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and that even so God’s Word can convert atheists. He finishes with this:

If the Lord has used AiG, including our Creation Museum, in your life to bring you to salvation, would you please let me know? Thank you.

So, here’s the problem. I actually credit an Answers in Genesis conference with letting the air out of the last of my young earth creationism. Yes, that’s right, in a sense you could argue that an Answers in Genesis conference led me to give up my creationism.

I was in college. It was there that I first truly came into contact with individuals who accepted evolution. The only time before this that I’d engaged a defender of evolution in debate was the time I was stuck in a car with my aunt for ten straight hours, and I’m pretty sure she was humoring me. I grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family. I read creationist literature from my church library starting when I was very young. I attended Answers in Genesis conferences as a teen and bought Answers in Genesis literature at homeschool conventions with my own money. I knew my stuff.

The problem was that when I was in college I came in contact with individuals who deconstructed my arguments without any trouble.

It was uncanny. I returned time and again to my creationist literature—the Answers in Genesis website received a lot of traffic from me during those months—and came back with new arguments and information to throw at my opponents, only to have those arguments soundly deconstructed as well.

There was one young man in particular—Sean. I later married him, as my regular readers will know. Sean and I spent hours debating the fine points of creationism and evolution. Sean had been a creationist himself some years before, but high school—and arguing on the internet—had changed his mind. But even as he pointed out flaws in every argument I could come up with, I had hope. I had an incredible amount of respect for Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis, and I was sure that if I could just get Sean to an Answers in Genesis conference that would do the trick. You may imagine my excitement when I learned that an Answers in Genesis conference was coming to a church in our area! Sean agreed to come, and I was sure our arguments were coming to an end.

That conference was an utter failure for me on more fronts than I’d realized going in. For one thing, Sean was unconvinced—and it wasn’t because he wasn’t listening, he was. But the real problem was that I was unconvinced. I hadn’t realized that hours of listening to Sean deconstruct creationist arguments would change the way those same arguments sounded to me when I heard going forward, but it did. I sat there in that church sanctuary with an instant rebuttal springing to mind for each point the speaker made, and I knew some of what he said was simply factually false.

I spent some time perusing the creationist literature they had for sale at the conference and kept running into the same problem—I knew rebuttals to everything I saw printed there.

I realized with growing horror that much of the material there was either flat-out lying or skillfully misleading people.

As we drove away from the church, I was quiet—shaken. I had seen this conference as a way of finally convincing Sean that I’d been right while at the same time reinvigorating my own beliefs, and it had failed on both accounts. Not only did this conference not give me new arguments and rebuttals, it shattered my trust in Answers in Genesis in particular and creationist literature more widely.

I spent a few weeks reading and researching, looking beyond Answers in Genesis’ materials to wider scientific resources. Answers in Genesis may have shattered my faith in creationism, but I still had a few questions about evolution that needed answering. After several weeks of study, I was satisfied. I left aside young earth creationism for good and became a theistic evolutionist. It was difficult, at first, because I was afraid my entire faith would fall apart after accepting evolution. After all, I’d heard Ken Ham repeat time and again that Genesis was the foundation of the Bible, and that without Genesis, the gospel story would collapse.

I’m no longer a Christian today, but evolution isn’t to blame there, strictly speaking. I spent some years as a progressive Christian, and even converted to Catholicism. I loved Catholicism’s embrace of the natural world and science, and its willingness to accept historical scholarship on the Bible. It was ultimately the fallout from a near-cult experience that led my faith to collapse. but in a sense, it was the collapse of my faith in young earth creationism that made me willing to see the beliefs I’d been taught as fallible, and open to asking questions.

I can’t speak for Donna, whose testimony is quite above—her journey is her own. Still, I find Ken Ham’s request to hear from his readers about the way “the Lord has used AiG . . . in your life to bring you salvation” highly ironic given my own experience.

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28 comments

Speaking as a professional scientist who is also a Christian, young earth creationism is just plain silly—and the Christian faith does not collapse without the two Genesis creation stories. It hangs together quite well without them. The place where people get into trouble with Genesis is when they read the Bible literally and choose to think it is an inerrant science textbook—something God never intended for it to be. The two creation stories in the Bible never happened because they are at odds with whole libraries full of solid scientific information to the contrary.

Personally, I have concluded that the two creation stories in Genesis are parables. You will recall from the New Testament that telling parables was one of the preferred methods Jesus used in teaching. Parables are “made up” stories designed to teach major spiritual points that God wishes to get across to humans. Christian fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals deny the right of God to tell parables in Genesis. God is telling his parables there, but they will have none of this behavior from an insolent God that would dare to question their fundie wisdom while they sit in God’s rightful position on his throne. As the Genesis parable makes clear, the original sin of Eve was the desire in her heart to become God through her own actions. When a fundie like Ken Ham denies God the right to tell his parables in the Old Testament, he is sitting on God’s throne by doing it and committing the most grievous of all original sins.

Creation science and intelligent design are utter nonsense, and I have long taken the position that fundies who cling to this deluded nonsense are the biggest “atheist/agnostic” makers on planet Earth.

Isn’t the whole concept of Christianiy at odds with science? Jesus is God but he’s also human, he was born to virgin(!), he died, but he’s alive now, but no one can see him. Not to mention that Christians believe in a Trinity but somehow they aren’t polytheists. I don’t see how someone can accept some of it but not other parts, when it’s all equally improbable.

Not all Christians accept the Trinity of Persons. My own (Swedenborgian) denomination considers that doctrine to be the fundamental error upon which all of the other doctrinal errors of traditional Christian doctrine are based. And yes, we see it as basically a quasi-Christian version of polytheism. Oneness Pentecostals also reject the Trinity of Persons.

For a different view of what Father, Son, and Holy Spirit mean, see my article: a href=”http://leewoof.org/2012/09/17/who-is-god-who-is-jesus-christ-what-about-that-holy-spirit/”>Who is God? Who is Jesus Christ? What about that Holy Spirit?

In general, attempts to read the Bible in a highly literal fashion lead to major conflicts not only with known science and history, but also among various statements made within the Bible itself. Christian fundamentalists have come up with many ingenious arguments attempting to resolve those conflicts and contradictions, but none of them are convincing to anyone other than the fundamentalists themselves.

The reality is that the Bible is full of parables and symbolic language. Insisting upon a literal reading of everything that can possibly be read literally is contrary to the overall character of the Bible itself. And such a reading is relatively recent in Christian history. It is, in fact, a reaction to the scientific revolution of the last few centuries.

Before the modern era, it was generally assumed throughout Christian history that the Bible has deeper meanings. The Creation story, in particular, was interpreted by many Christian theologians to be about the spiritual development of humankind rather than about the physical act of creation.

I very much appreciate dover 1952’s input.
I was raised a fundamentalist by my mother, challenged to grow beyond that by my father ( who was a self taught amateur naturalist, geologist, paleontologist and mineralogist) . I majored in biology and earth sciences education in a state college, served in the Peace Corps in India (where I learned much about humanity and what we have in common), earned a Master of Religious Education and Master of Divinity from a mainline Protestant theological school, and served in parish ministry and hospice ministry for 40 years.
In retirementI received training from the Ohio State University Extension and for 3 years I have been an Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist working in the nature center of the wonderful Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve.
I come to my position on young earth Creationism with a lot of relevant educational background and experience. When I talk to visitors at the nature center about the formation of the Clifton Gorge, I am keenly aware that young earth Creationist cannot even accept that the Gorge was formed by the huge flow of melt waters mainly from the Wisconsin Glaciation (which began to recede 15,000 years ago) cutting through hundreds of millions of years of dolomite, limestone and shale bedrock. Young earth Creationist believe that the earth was formed just 6,000 plus years ago, according to Bishop Ussher’s calculations from the
King James Version of the Bible (published in 1611 ). His calculations come solely from literally adding up the years required
and recorded for the generations of humanity since Adam and Eve were created, and the literal six days of creation. All of his calculations are made without any benefit from centuries of scientific discoveries about the history of the earth and the
amazing transformations and phases that the earth has undergone during it’s existence in our solar system.
I am a Christian who believes that the Bible is God’s Word for humanity that was recorded to help us understand God’s
love for us and to help us love each other on this planet. When I see the NASA pictures of the earth from space,
I realize that we are on one earth and we are one human race with the responsibility to care for each other and to protect this beautiful, unique jewel in space that we have been given by God as our home. Woe to humanity if we let theological
(a human construct) and political (a human construct) destroy or distort WHAT WE HAVE TOGETHER!

I’m so confused at what you’re trying to get across. How can you say the Genesis accounts are parables if there are verses throughout the bible referring to one original couple and how one person”s sin ruined all humans (descendants). If you see it in a parable do you mean to say there were many people in the beginning? That’s nonsense because it would mean that they all sinned at the same exact time and that going too deep into assumptions. I agree that jesus spoke in parables. Don’t assume the same for the writer of Genesis.

As a Christian myself, this man’s efforts really, really irritate me. My conviction is that I should quietly witness for Christ via the actions and words in my life … Ken Ham seriously tests that quietness by making me want to scream at him “STOP THIS!!!”

Thank you. That was lovely. No one can really understand your journey unless they’ve been on a similar one – but I admire your courage to ask the real questions and to face whatever answers you meet. “An unexamined life is not worth living.”

I have a B.S in Animal Science and have taken quite a few courses, including “The Organic Processes of Evolution.” As a result i left the church and became agnostic. 13 years later I, by a miracle, came back to the Lord. I had to confront whether man came by ape or through as described in Genesis. Ken Ham, in three hours of lecture at our church, offered me many views NOT given in our classroom. For the past 35 years I have dug into a lot of research and have presented “Scientific Support” for various aspects concerning evolution – from the so-called “traditional Big Bang” to the “Primal Soup” on and on to apes to men. Evolution just is not true.There are way too many points where it fails.

This subject is way to enormous for me to make arguments here, But let me just point out two prominent issues. If there was the “traditional Big Bang”, where did the starting elements come from? If it was Hydrogen or ylem, where did it come from. Nothing comes from nothing except it be Supernatural. If Hydrogen were always here, couldn’t God. And how could Hydrogen, as gas, break the laws of gasses and form into a dense mass?

Secondly,from the “Primal Soup”, suppose an organism formed. Or, let’s say I possess all the chemicals for life in the right proportion and I created life right in front of your eyes (which is impossible, life from non-life). But suppose I did. THAT ORGANISM would have to do many things to even survive, For instance, breath (respire), find food, digest, eliminate waste, reproduce, have some means of motility to find food, or avoid direct sunlight or heat or cold, and eventually avoid predators.

I am sorry my friend. Those arguments against evolution you have been reading are all pseudoscience. Every point creationists have ever made has been soundly refuted with real science. The thing you are missing is that the creationists will never let you see those refutations when they are making their arguments. A number of them are known to be outright liars and deceivers (and some are convicted criminals) who hide key information from their readers and audiences—and the key information they hide is almost always the information that makes their arguments fall completely apart. To them, the most important thing on Earth is to get you to believe in young Earth creationism. The amount of wickedness and evil they propagate to get you there is irrelevant to them as long as they get you there. The old adage: “The end justifies the means” is their operative MO.

My are you deluded. Good science support the Genesis Creation. We have the same facts. Scientific evidence demonstrates that the sun shrinks 5 feet in diameter per day, (Such dat supports this even from arc studies tracted since the 1850’s) If we go back just a few thousand years, the size and heat of the sun would make lige impossible. Going back even a bit further in time the sun, by gravitational pull, would have pulled in Mercury, Venus and Earth.
Biochemist have yet to create life from non-life.
The universe had to have a “First Cause”. If you study it out, the cause could only have been a supernatural cause.
Don’t tell me about liars, I’ve studied this since 1970. You’ll find the liars and the inept among those who have continued to bring up disproved data (as about Earnest Haeckel’s drawings) and those who fake so-called intermediates between humans and apes.
Tons more stuff out there. Look for it.

Hi Darcy. Well, it has been two years, so I would guess not. Truth is, we have enormous amounts of prehistoric American Indian sites and remains throughout North American that are many, many thousands of years older than “just a few thousand years ago.” Darcy, you and others here might enjoy watching the following recent video from the PBS science series NOVA. It is really, really, really good. Watch it on the full-screen option if you have a new computer because the cinematography rivals that of a digital theater movie. Here is the safe link to click: